Moral Equivalency & Predators

MARRIAGE WASTELAND
You marry a guy you think loves you. You spend over 12 years married to him and all of that time trying to have children with him. You excuse the annoyances, the put downs, the criticism, the snide remarks. You love him. You try very hard to make him happy though it seems he never is.

You have the children and the disability you’ve been struggling with for a couple years gets worse. You no longer have many friends, you can’t go out, your husband goes to work and then out for hours at a time. And leaves you alone. With 2 children. While you are sick.

But that’s not the worst of it. He no longer wants to have sex. At all. You stopped initiating. You noticed years ago he refused to initiate but he promised it would change after all the scheduled sex for infertility, etc. But it doesn’t. You are sharing a bed with a virtual stranger.

You wake up in the morning clinging to the side of the bed where you have almost been shoved off. You are told to go sleep on the couch now because your disability makes you sweat. You sleep on the floor of your children’s rooms to be there for them so he can sleep and go to work. He tells you he resents that you can’t work anymore and he’s the bread winner. He feels “put upon.”

You confront him about the no sex. He looks at you like a deer in headlights. You ask repeatedly what he wants - anything - another woman, another man, toys, ****… anything. And he avoids. He refuses therapy and projects it all back on you. If it wasn’t for your kids you’d want to die. You can’t work anymore and now you feel like nothing. No love. No sex. Nothing but blame and anger. Nothing.

But the verbal and emotional abuse continues. You finally realize you are being abused through therapy and cold hard thought. You try to get him to therapy again. No dice. You are too physically ill to fight and too broke to up and leave just then. You’re nothing. Just a cipher.

ONE DAY…
Then, one day, you get an email from an old friend. Someone you haven’t talked to in over 20 years. Someone actually remembers you! It’s very nice to catch up. You want to meet his family, have him meet yours.

But, in just a week or so, this old friend brings up that you & he slept together back in the day. He “says” you deflowered him. You have no idea. You laugh. He asks you about your marriage after telling you his is stone cold and he doesn’t love his wife anymore - and hasn’t for a long time. You have a sympathetic ear, you think. You tell him what’s going on. No reason not to trust him after he’d shared his marital woes with you. Right?

Then every conversation with him turns to how much he “liked” you and making you feel guilty for not “liking” him back. You try to tell him it wasn’t that way - it was the other way around. He never called you or dated you - you just slept together. He waxes poetic about how nice you are, what a good person, probably a good mother and how loving the sex was. You are shocked he remembers anything at all. He throws in just enough details so you think maybe he does remember and you don’t. He makes you think he still has feelings for you. He listens to you, asks about your health, asks about your feelings and draws you out - you are so relieved. Finally, someone who listens and cares.

DECISION BASED ON SEVERE DEPRESSION
Before you know it, one day, out of the blue, your ‘old friend’ initiates cybersex. You’ve been so depressed for so many years and just existing something inside you makes you go along. Next thing you know you do it again with him.

He only calls you 3 times in 2 years -twice for phone sex. Never ever just a ‘hi’ how are you call. He says he CAN’T call you - that he couldn’t “control” himself around you if he saw you or called. He tells you this more times than you can count. If you get sick, he goes from concern to ‘could care less.’ In fact, he gives you the vibe your illness somehow ‘inconvenienced’ him. But you blow it off - like you blew off all the abuse you’d been getting in your marriage for all those years. It was good practice at denial.

One night he spends 2 hours online with you telling you how he HAS to be with you sexually. Just once. He doesn’t know how he’s going to make it happen but he needs you desperately.

You can’t believe it. You tell him to slow down. How about lunch? A drink? You have kids. You want to meet his family. This isn’t right. And you don’t do “just once.” In fact, you aren’t sure you want to continue. He pleads a few more times.

You turn his pleas over and over in your head. And something inside you snaps. You don’t really have inner strength to say no after all those years of abuse and abandonment. You reluctantly say O.K. to the ongoing cybersex but still hedge on the real sex. You’d rather have a normal friendship but somehow every online chat turns to sex. You can’t think straight - you feel like you were run down by a love train.

You remember the abortion you had for him and decide not to tell him. You remember how much you liked him and how he blew you off but he ‘explains’ it all away. You fall back in love with him like you did over 25 years before. Then your husband finds out.

FOUND OUT
Your husband’s been hacking your computer and passively aggressively emails you & your old friend. What does your old friend do? Disappear for 5 weeks leaving you to take beatings, verbally & physically, from your husband. When your ’sympathetic ear‘ does come back online - he’s ANGRY that you & your husband are going to counseling and have decided to separate.

And all those “I have to have you” feelings? Gone. Poof. You ask the old friend who you have been baring your soul to and he gives no answer. When you ask him - he disappears offline for a few days.

You chat with him as just friends for over a year but he still refuses to introduce you to his family or meet yours. The one time you pressure him to have lunch with you he acts oddly - as if you’re an annoyance to be near. But you let him skate because you no longer know the difference between abuse and normal behavior. And your husband is abusing you daily - because of ‘old friend.‘

A few months into this one day you are online with him and a female friend of yours who doesn’t live far from him. You mention to him you are chatting to her too. He then IMs her (who he doesn’t know or ever been introduced to!) some very suggestive things. She is furious, blocks him and tells you he’s a creep. You tell her she over-reacted.

NEXT!
21 months after your ‘old friend‘ looks you up and involves you in this ‘affair’ you find out he’s planning a full blown affair with a yet another friend of yours on the other coast! Another severely abused, lonely and depressed woman. That you introduced to him. She tells you he’s emailing, calling her 2-4 times per day, offering gifts, money and has used a business trip to a city near her to start the physical affair. Using the hotel paid for by his employer as the place. He tells her he LOVES her and she’s his SOULMATE. No, they have never met in person. And most of all, telling her things about you that are mind-boggling in their nasty, twisted intent… with the added caveat for her NOT to speak to you ever because YOU are supposedly “obsessed” with him. Oh, and by the way, he uses the EXACT SAME come-on lines and the EXACT same cybersex scenarios with her. This girlfriend of yours even sends you a short homemade “movie” he made of himself. That shocked her so much she’s already sent it to the FBI.

You spend almost 3 days not sleeping and puking into the drain in your garden so your kids won’t hear or smell. You don’t eat. You haven’t just been had. You call your therapist and she tells you about emotional rape. You decide that its time to tell his wife what he’s doing. NOT as revenge but because it should have been done a long time ago. You had kept your husband from going to his wife before - now she should know what he’s doing.

You’re in deep shock. You can’t believe this is the same person you’ve known all this time. You wonder if what he’s told you about his wife is even true, since he lied so outrageously about you. And you worry about his kids and what he’s doing locked in his office online all the time.

“Old Friend” finally calls you on the phone and tries to talk to you. He tries to lie a little more. He tries to keep you from telling his wife. He tells you you “mean too much to him” and he doesn’t “want to lose you out of his life.” He even tries to tell you he has “feelings” for you. You tell him how you feel; it pours out of your mouth like one long scream. He hangs up on you and you go puke out in your garden some more.

You know he was lying. Why? Because a few days earlier, your girlfriend he was planning the affair with, the one he loved? Let you know that he told her that he’d “NEVER LOVED YOU! NEVER!” and that you are a scorned & obsessed woman.

You tell your girlfriend to please go be with him because you want him to be happy. But she does a little investigating on her own and calls you back to tell you - you were right and he’s been lying to her too. Now you really need to tell his wife because destructive lying seems to be a way of life for him and you know he went through a 10 month unemployment where she was paying his bills for him. So he was the user and abuser in the marriage, not her. She deserves to know. You apologize, IN WRITING, to his poor wife every time you send her anything and include your phone number - just in case.

HOW DARE YOU BE HONEST - HOW DARE YOU BE HURT
When he finds out you told his wife, he threatens you. Threatens to help your abusive, now estranged husband, take your precious children away. You know he’s lied to the wife about you and done major damage control. But the threat sends you to your precinct’s domestic violence officer - who sends you to Computer Crimes.

By the time you get to Computer Crimes its been over a week. You are barely sleeping. In the meantime this “old friend” has sent you AND your girlfriend he’s ‘in love’ with an apology. Together. Both of you. Her first. Like a chain letter.

Not only that he misspells your last name in a lewd manner. You are so deeply traumatized and all the feelings of being unwanted and self-destructive surface. You self-harm and the day after you go to Computer Crimes your doctor puts you in the hospital over night for the self-harm. You leave after being treated, put on heavy sedatives. You go home to the children and angry estranged husband who blames you for everything. You feel like garbage.

WHAT’S THAT SMELL
At Computer Crimes what was a personal shock becomes a virtual nuclear explosion. Your ‘old friends’ online activities are found in just a few minutes. What’s there?

- postings about hookers he’s seen on his lunch hour - starting at least TWO YEARS before he even looked you up! These postings are detailed and objectifying. Some of the most disgusting things you have ever read. And some WORD FOR WORD things he said to you during cybersex.

- credit cards traced to phone sex lines and 1-900 lines going back at least three years BEFORE he looked you up.

You tell them you’d asked him repeatedly if he’d ever seen a hooker and he told you no. Lie number one. Big lie. The victim’s assistance officer takes you to the bathroom to puke some more. The detectives tell you this has added damning information to a small investigation on 2 local brothels that they are investigating. They probably won’t do much about him - small potatoes. You tell them to please leave him alone - he’s got a family.

You leave and go home. New information in hand. You let ‘old friend‘ know you know. The police call - Old friend’s been busy ‘cleaning his tracks.’ All the postings suddenly “disappear.” The credit cards get ditched and new ones are gotten, they say. The girlfriend he “loves” tells you he’d dumped his cell phone - probably gotten a new one. The detectives laugh about him ‘destroying evidence.’ They show you how nothing ever dies on the internet. You feel sick.

NEXT! PART TWO
Five months later another friend of yours, a severely abused woman with children in the middle of a divorce (the one who lives near him & blocked him after getting some lurid IMs from him?) - calls you. Guess who just put HER on his mailing list. She tells you that she must have gotten access to her IM list because back when he was just starting on you, he IM’d her - out of the blue - said he was a friend of yours and then proceeded to post LEWD comments to her & she blocked him. She didn’t want to tell you at the time but she did save the chat and sends it off to the Police as well. (BTW - old friend even accuses her of trying to HARASS him on your behalf later! Which she never did and WOULD never do! Always the martyr that old friend.) The detectives are told. Your email is watched. You destroy your computer and wait a few months to save up for a new one.

A few months after that, the moderator of an online support group you belong to tells you (since they have already ask for the ‘old friend’s’ IP, etc) that he’s coming frequently to the group. Reading all your posts. All your pain. All your distorted thoughts and agony. They make sure to give you proof. You install a hit counter on your blog even find him coming to your personal blog every Saturday night for weeks before you confront him online. Nothing happens. You become reclusive and don’t go out or make any new friends (JUST friends) online for a couple years.

ACT THREE
Time goes by and one day you happen to be in this ‘old friend’s’ “territory.” You have no idea he’s even there when you sign up but there you are. He’s never called, never really apologized. Never made any attempt to put things right to you. You have tried to go on. You’ve been in counseling for PTSD and other issues now fairly intensively. You’ve gotten some of your ’self’ back and are 1/2 way out of the marriage. You feel at least strong enough to voice your opinions and do so online, thereby crossing into ‘his space.’ You try to maintain cordial distance.

And because he feels you are in his “territory” he posts a very whitewashed version of what happened. Leaving out all the hookers & ****, etc that he’s sure he’s erased. You will have to read it to see how he paints yours truly.

The most stunning element of his story is he makes your being lured into and going along with an online affair - MORALLY EQUIVALENT to everything he’s done. He also doesn’t admit to anything but the online affair (which he now calls a ‘game’ in which ‘you participated knowing that it was just a game’) which would make anyone he’s smeared you to believe that it was MORALLY EQUIVALENT.

Suddenly YOU are the bad one. You are just as bad.

Wait! You didn’t see hookers. You weren’t using **** or phone sex. You weren’t posting about your lunchtime frolics with hookers on a ‘review board.’ You had an online affair with someone you really cared about because he’d led you to believe (stupidly, yes) that he cared very deeply for you in the SAME WAY and it was the ONLY SAFE WAY TO BE WITH HIM WITHOUT ANYONE GETTING HURT.

You’re lied about to his ‘new’ friends under his ‘new’ identity. Incredible lies. Added in is the caveat, again, not to speak to you about it because YOU are the liar.

You’re maligned in so many ways you lose count, as your friends tell you what he’s saying about you. You try to ignore it.

People you & he might both know? Are told not to speak to you, not to believe you or even post your comments on their websites.

He never admits his sex addiction.

You are blamed for somehow ‘driving his mother to a heart attack’ though you have no idea what that somehow was, or what was done. No proof is offered other than HIS word.

You are blamed for things there was no physical way you could have done.

Your friends are blamed for doing things on your behalf. Things which you have NO IDEA and NO CONTROL over.
This is MORALLY EQUIVALENT?

YOU REALIZE THE HORRIFYING FACTS:

You are nothing. The only, yes the ONLY reason this person even BOTHERED to look you up? Was because you had sex a couple times over 25 years ago back in college. The ONLY reason.

Since he was unemployed at the time he USED & PLAYED your emotions to make you emotionally bonded to him so you’d have sex with him again. Online and hopefully, once OFFLINE. He couldn’t afford his hookers. He wanted his lunchtime fun back. He traded on his charisma and your feelings for him as well as you being TOO ABUSED & LONELY TO SEE WHAT HE WAS REALLY AFTER. A freebie.

Twisted use of your friendship: Turns out ‘old friend’ had online postings out there AT LEAST 2 YEARS PRIOR TO GETTING IN TOUCH WITH YOU for casual sex partners. Here’s just a couple of what’s out there (if he hasn’t found some way to try to delete them. And don’t worry, a number of parties have screen shots):

http://www.utopiaguide.com/forums/search.php?searchid=982634 (UtopiaGuide confirmed to my contacts at NYPD that "old friend" - his IP validated - removed all his posts.)

When those ads didn’t pan out, he went on the hunt and found YOU. So what was he LOOKING FOR? A freebie. Abused & lonely YOU. And played you like a fiddle. When your abusive husband found out & started beating you, you became a mere inconvenience - so he went to YOUR FRIENDS. Why not? You’d already done some great P.R. for him. You were his calling card. You the supposedly ‘obsessed & lovesick’ woman.

How’s that for being USED?

And that’s not even all! You realize he actually got PISSED AT YOU that your abusive husband hacked your blog and found out. He BLAMED you for that. Then, he went to YOUR FRIENDS for his added sexual outlets. Trading on YOUR GOOD WORDS ABOUT HIM. But also, to hurt you. To hurt you for YOU being hacked! For inconveniencing him.

And to hurt you for LOVING HIM.

The ONLY reason he looked you up: was to turn you into a FREE ***** for him.

MISSING
Your friend, your sympathetic ear, the friend you defended, the person you loved, the person you’d had an abortion by (oh and by the way, a boyfriend in college beat the crap out of you over this same friend too! and YES ‘old friend’ knew this guy was a psycho when he introduced us), the person you offered to help find marriage counseling for he & his wife or find help for his problems, the person you’d wasted time and energy on, the friend you’d poured your heart out too? USED YOU LIKE A TISSUE AND FLUSHED YOU AWAY.

How dare you turn out to be a person with feelings.

How dare you say ‘OUCH YOU HURT ME’

How dare you complain about having your character shredded

How dare you intrude on his ‘reality’ and his story of being YOUR ‘victim.’

How dare you - tell the truth.

Because you are: Nothing. Unwanted. Useless. Nothing.

What happened to your friend? That’s really all you wanted. Your friend.

What did you do to deserve being treated like this in the first place?

Are you really that stupid & useless? That someone looked you up for the same thing almost every male in your life ever wanted from you - after 27 years?

You must be.

You were just free cybersex for this person. You weren’t worth a phone call, a hello, nothing. However, you have been taking verbal & physical abuse for him. Your kids are traumatized and you are hospitalized 2x and put in a clinic for almost 2 weeks. You are now on medication for trauma. You rarely leave your house.

And yet, you meant NOTHING to him - not even worth an apology to your face. Just hate & attack - attack - attack.

I am estranged from the Narc-husband for financial reasons & the kids. But basically, I never want to meet anyone again.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Old friend's whitewashed & twisted version of events he's told friends & family:
http://www.jewishblogging.com/blog.php?bid=96316

Online harassment from "old friend" and his proxies:
http://thestumblingblock.wordpress.com/2008/01/12/lashon-hara-from-ywl/

The whole story, in detail - with comments from http://cyberpaths.blogspot.comon how he did it:
http://cyberpathlinks.blogspot.com/2007/06/j-aka-gridney-aka-yidwithlid-aka-sammy.html

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